Making Church Sticky

I just finished reading my first full ebook on the Kindle that Pam gave me for my birthday. I was amazed at how fast I was able to fly through this one and I’m not sure if it was due to the format or the content, but suffice it to say that Larry Osborne’s Sticky Church was paradigm shifting for me on many levels.

Larry Osborne pastors North Coast Church in Vista, California and has grown the church from 128 people in the early 80s to now over 7000 people.

He writes that while there are some churches that are very good at getting people to come through the front door, many of them are ineffective at helping people stick around long enough to develop fully devoted followers of Christ. Sticky Church focuses on the importance of closing the back door through an effective small group ministry. I think he’s onto something.

A lot of what we’re already doing was affirmed in this book, but there were so many ideas that I received from this book that I’m excited about putting them into practice this Fall. At The Connection Church, our purpose for Connection Groups has always been to help people connect with each other in authentic relationships. That will not change. But Osborne’s ideas have given me some tools to facilitate this happening on a larger scale.

Sticky Church offers time-tested principles for recruiting and training leaders as well as practical programming ideas for churches to take their groups to the next level. If you’re a small group leader in your church, let me encourage you to get your hands on this book. Good stuff!